Saying goodbye

Making the decision

Making the decision took a long time and a lot of heartache. Being of a certain age -- rapidly approaching 50 -- it boiled down to a now or never dilemma. I needed to work for financial reasons, to give myself the chance to integrate into Turkish society and, perhaps most importantly, because I still love teaching. The opportunities to be employed as an early years teacher for those over 50 are sadly reduced, and besides, working with 3 year olds requires the sort of energy levels I was in danger of losing, especially while working within the UK educational system.

Having travelled around Turkey, I knew that there were few places where I could live comfortably. Cosmopolitan İstanbul remains a favorite place of mine, but having spent my last 15 years in a small town (around 20,000 people) in the north of England, I felt a move to such a megacity would be a step too far -- even though I’d lived and worked in London in my 20s. Provincial towns such as Van and Trabzon had their attractions, but would, I felt, be too conservative. So I plumped for Antalya. With a population nearing a million, it’s hardly the small town it was in the 1950s, but the sea is accessible most of the year and the mountains serve as a rather grand reminder of the Pennines and Peak District from my past. More importantly, being a tourist hotspot, foreigners are not the novelty they still are in some other parts of Turkey, and, although it is not possible to be entirely inconspicuous, it is certainly easier to blend in to the environment.

Having made the decision, it took well over a year to sort out the practicalities. I used to live in a somewhat dilapidated Victorian house. I like to blame the general state of disrepair on my three children, all of whom had enjoyed their fair share of teenage parties and tantrums over the course of many years. In truth, I had not kept up with the running repairs needed to maintain this kind of property. To rectify this, I first became an avid watcher of the many “Do your house up in five minutes” and “How to sell your home with no problems” type of programs on TV. It is very simple -- smarten up the bathroom, paint everything white, reduce the amount of personal touches and the house will sell itself. Amazingly, the advice of the home makeover programs did the trick, and the house sold straight away. Emptying the house of years of family life was both physically and emotionally daunting, but once the process was started the many trips to the charity shops became a form of therapy that I would heartily recommend.

Friends’ reactions to my news varied from the “Wow, good for you. I’ve always wanted to do something like that but never dared,” from the more adventurous of my friends, to the more restrained “Are you sure? Have you really thought about this? What about your job? Pension plan? Life insurance?” from the more cautious. Even though many would have jumped at the chance to spend a few weeks on Turkey’s wonderful beaches or exploring its plethora of ancient sites, they were concerned, rather than jealous, that I was about to jump ship. Most, I suspect, secretly felt I was having some form of mid-life crisis.

Breaking the news

Breaking the news to my family was, naturally enough, more difficult. Two thousand miles seems like a long way despite the wonders of modern communication technology. These days it is very common for teenagers to return to their parents’ home for extended stays in between jobs, travelling, degree courses, girl or boyfriends, and in the present economic climate, it is increasingly hard for parents to remove these cherished but non-paying guests. Removing myself to Turkey was certainly a way out of this predicament. By taking away their comfort zone, I hoped to make them more independent and able to cope out in the real world. As well as providing them with a convenient holiday destination, they could also indirectly gain a few insights into a different country. With everything from swimming to skiing, shopping to bar-hopping and clubbing to film festivals, Antalya has plenty of attractions for all my children. I’m not sure they were entirely convinced by my justifications, but all things considered, they took the news that their mother was not only selling the family home but also abandoning the country of her (and their) birth remarkably well.

Saying goodbye

When it was time to say goodbye my partner and I threw a big farewell do at the local football club, thus hoping to avoid too many painful goodbyes. The excellent but little known, now defunct, punk band White Noise provided the music, and the combination of loud music, alcohol and a room full of people who knew how to have a good time helped us leap the final “goodbye” hurdle.

Saying goodbye to family was harder. The only way to make this bearable was to plan out the coming year with visits from parents and the children (all be it nearly grown up) at regular intervals. Many hours were spent researching airlines and their fares, and these Web sites continue to be among my favorite for browsing in the hope of finding unexpectedly cheap flights. There was no need to worry about not seeing the children. It turned out that they are more than happy to have holidays in the sun (or snow) especially as their still devoted mother pays for the flights. The weeks that they are here more than make up for the missed opportunities of spending time with them had I stayed in the UK. Over the years, they have introduced their friends to the pleasures of Turkey, and I am frequently to be seen at all hours of the day and night waiting impatiently outside the arrivals gate of the airport along with the other transfer drivers.

The move here was, of course, very stressful, and living in Turkey for the last four years has had its challenging moments. But the choice of Antalya has helped ease the distance, as all my family enjoys the wonderfully varied attractions Antalya has to offer. I also like to think they have benefited from seeing how their mum has started a new life for herself in a sometimes difficult, but always exciting, country -- and begun to look upon Antalya as their “third” home.